Several Caribbean legislators have expressed outrage over the shooting of a 13-year-old Haitian-born boy at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Beverley Road in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York earlier this week.
The police report that Gama Droiville, who was an innocent bystander, was hit in the eye and ear by a gunman who was attempting to shoot a man who was standing nearby.
Droiville is reportedly in stable condition at Kings County Hospital while the man was treated at the same hospital for an injury to his leg.
“I would like to extend our prayers and well wishes for the complete and speedy recovery of young Gama Droiville, who was struck in a hail of bullets in another senseless tragedy in our district,” Caribbean American Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke, representative for the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).
“The shooting of Gama Droiville was yet another in a series of violent and often times deadly attacks that shakes the community at its core,” added Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants.
Clarke said she believed the tragedy could have been prevented had US federal laws been enacted to prohibit and sanction gun trafficking.
“We must be resolved to do everything in our power to change the conditions that exist to put guns into the hands of callous and murderous individuals,” she said.
Haitian-born New York City Council Member Mathieu Eugene and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams held a press conference at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Beverley Road in Brooklyn late Wednesday to speak out against the shooting and called on the community to take greater action to stem local gun violence.
“Senseless violence nearly claimed the life of more victims yesterday,” said Eugene, representative for the 40th Council District in Brooklyn. “A young boy, innocent of any crime, will carry the scars of another’s heinous act for the remainder of his life.”
He said the shooting was “a dark reminder of the tragic consequences that gun violence continues to wreak on our community.
“Public safety is the responsibility of the entire public, and I believe Flatbush can be a leading example of this effort to advance safer streets for all Brooklynites,” he added.
Grenadian American New York City Councilman Jumaane Williams, who represents the 45th Council District in Brooklyn, said “words cannot express the frustration of adding more names to a list of gun violence victims that, unfortunately, continues to grow by the day.
“A 20-year-old man has apparently risked two victims’ lives, along anyone in his path, as a way to solve his problems…his idiocy hit a 13-year old. The shooter’s actions indicate he needs to be removed from our streets, and I hope for a speedy arrest,” Williams added.
Droiville’s Haitian-born dad, Jimmy Marcel, said “doctors told us it’s a blessing he’s alive.”
